“Houston” Wrap-Up: $45,000 in Four Days

Yeah, Quilt Festival was FUN! Actually, it was $45,845.03 in four and a HALF days, but who’s counting?  :)   And, we had time for PICTURES!

Clockwise from the right side-up one: Ami, Jennie, Debbie, Kathy, Susan, and Niki. (Nanette, we missed you!)

If your monitor is too heavy to rotate so that you can see everyone easily without cocking your head, here we are again with a pretty impressive background. (I bet you’re looking for your quilt, not at us.)

Left to right: Kathy, Debbie, Jennie, Ami , Niki, and Susan.

One thousand twenty-six (1,026)  of your Priority: Alzheimer’s Quilts and Little Treasures quilts went to Houston and only 135 came home. Quilts were tagged with the name of the quilt, the maker’s name, their city/state, artist statement and dedication—just like on the web site.  (Thank you Diane Petersmarck, Mary Lecea, Rebekkah Tario, Ruth Murray, Martha Winn, and Karolyn Baker for getting all the quilts listed, tagged, and bagged.)

Quilts were priced from$5 to $425. We also received many generous cash donations. See which quilts sold in Houston only for a couple more days. They’ll be re-shuffled on the website soon.

Two Women And A Truck

Houston AAQI board members Susan and Kathy met us at the airport. They had already set up the booth, all of it. Debbie and I brought half the quilts and Niki flew in from Florida.  Michigan quilt teachers Sue Nickels and Pat Holly who happened to have been flying in the same day used their “second” bag allowance to “mule in” the other half of the quilts.

Our triple booth was made possible by Karey Bresenhan and by a donation by John Flynn. Quilts were displayed on seven 4′ x 8′ Styrofoam insulation boards duct-taped together and covered with black fabric (Thanks,  EE Shenk.) We could show about 200 quilts at a time. As soon as one quilt sold, we put another one up in its place.  Celebrity quilters, including Pat and Sue, helped hawk the quilts.

We also had a table where people could write the name of someone who has/had Alzheimer’s on a purple fabric patch and wear during the show to raise awareness. Those that came back to us will be used in a special project. Kathy (below), Susan, Bidwell Drake, and volunteers from the Houston Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association spent many hours talking to people about their loved ones.

We all took turns at the “check-out” table, some longer than others.  I don’t know why Debbie and Niki are smiling. I tied their ankles to the table legs. (They were VERY good at their jobs!) See the string of purple patches already sewn together hanging on the right side of the wall behind Niki? You’ll be seeing more of those in the future.

Every evening after the show closed we brought all the quilts home! And every morning they went back up on the wall.

Houston was an extraordinary experience. Matching up quilts with their new owners, sharing stories about those we love affected by this disease, and witnessing the number of caring people drawn to a common purpose was an experience like no other. And, knowing that we beat last year’s record by about $8,000 was just plain incredible. See how well we did during our fist year as a nonprofit on the Show Me The Money page.

My heartfelt thanks goes out to everyone who had a hand in making this happen—all the quilters who threaded their needles, opened their wallets, rolled up their sleeves,  and shared their hearts.

Thank you SO MUCH for your support,

Ami Simms